"'Thou Hast Most Traitorously Corrupted the Youth of the Realm . . . Thou Hast Built a Paper-mill' (Shakespeare 2 Henry 6,) Or, The First Thing we Do is Kill All the Trees"

Citation:Egan, G. (2005) "'Thou Hast Most Traitorously Corrupted the Youth of the Realm . . . Thou Hast Built a Paper-mill' (Shakespeare 2 Henry 6,) Or, The First Thing we Do is Kill All the Trees." Paper delivered at the conference, English Studies and the Computer, University of Newcastle, 3-4 November

Abstract:

In the 15 years since computers started to appear on English tutors desks, their
most notable effect has been to turn the trickle of paper circulating in
university departments into a flood. Rather than exploiting the computer's power
to turn paper-text into infinitely copyable, full-text searchable e-text, almost
all users filled their rooms with dead trees. Furthermore, new technology has
encouraged tutors to develop online courseware, especially websites and CD-ROMs,
that merely replicate teaching material already available on paper. Only a tiny
minority of such courseware exploits the new media's unique features, and all
'solves' non-existent problems in teaching English....